Cordelia Speaks

SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 236 Report by Guy Kendall Price of £ 5 was offered to competitors for writing, in not more than 12 lines of verse, or 1.50 words of prose, what they thought Cordelia might have said if she had cared to tell her other the whole truth on the occasion set farth in King Lear, Act I, Scene 1.

As a boy, I used to feel that Cordelia ather' asked for it' with her cold and tongue- ied attitude. This led me to wonder ecently (ignoring the fact that thus there ould have been no tragedy) what she ould have said if she had gilt= utterance to II that was in her heart. Suggestions of most varied kinds have been forthcoming abundantly, mostly including very plain- sPoken reflexions, in a modern or ancient idiom, on the conduct of the elder sisters.

Here and there a Shakespearean phrase or passage peeped through:

'Nothing, a spectre from their hollow hearts, Will rise to grasp thee in an icy hand,

And fling thine aching and unhonourcd bones Upon that heap of dust, their charity.' ('Tungsten.')

bost thine eye perceive in me no difference from u,these my sisters, TY,110se words of love, coming only from their • nead, ring no answering echo in their soul? Like the crafty crocodile, whose false tears shed p 2,en while devouring its victim,

,

non scaly hide less hard than its cruel heart. well may a lying tongue paint Truth's own

, picture, And soft and tender protestations proceed from , hearts more black than Lethe's flood.

1-ove were Love because the lips avowed it, Vann would haven be tilled with orators. "lit, when actions speak, let prating mouths be And yet, to please thee, dearest father, will I A forget my dearest resolve. nd will say, my deeds the meantime nodding mIling approval, 'ant I do love thee higher than my hope of living, and deeper than my fear of dying.

'My lord, I have no gauge to measure love. The passions and emotions of the heart Cannot express their worth in throbbing pulse.' (Howard N. Burton

I recommend, for prizes of £2 each, Allan M. Laing (his second entry, by `a Iess gentle, uninhibited Cordelia'), and Major A. W. Dicker, who sent in the best verse in modern technique (it seems to resemble :Hebrew poetry with its correspondences and Its gnomic manner). £1 to Edgar Evans for best prose entry. Highly commended are • Kennard Davis, .1. S. Stanier, and L. A. Davies.

PRIZES

(ALLAN M. LAING)

farewell, fair modesty and sister love,

Will break forth my thought. Know, good my lord,

141,Y sisters love you as a cat loves cream: lye them their chancc.and they'll devour you , too, nave you, my father, lived with them so long *nd still ignore their high ambition's greed? raY down their portions: make the gift sccure, .11‘,,ad see their love dissolve like April snow. he hold you for a tedious old man,

*nd like a worn out glove would cast you off. tender words of love their lying tongues tlave soiled, shall I repeat, whose love is true?

(MAJOR A. W. DICKER)

strained me. for I was your one bulwark against your own kin. But now my pride forbids me to do more. To vie with my sisters in aping devotion to you were shame and dishonour. Even the attempt were in vain for have they not spoken first, and so piled Pelion on Ossa that I could not hope to overtop their mountain of words? My love keeps a lower flight, and if it speaks, speaks moderately. Only love's counterfeit has a brazen voice.

Here stand two suitors for my hand. Should not be forsworn in professing love for either, if you, with them as witnesses, had already claimed all?

1, who have suffered with you, shielded you,

honoured and loved you, am now helpless to do more. By stripping yourself of your power, you cast yourself bound before two tigresses. Alas! this time you must suffer alone.